


I'd Give Away A Thousand Days

by GraceTyabb



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Sexual Confusion, Éponine dressing as a boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-18
Updated: 2013-02-18
Packaged: 2017-11-29 17:44:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/689696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraceTyabb/pseuds/GraceTyabb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fill for Les Mis Anon Kink Meme: "One of the boys finding himself attracted to Eponine in drag, not knowing she's really a girl, and questioning his sexuality."</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'd Give Away A Thousand Days

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt for this fill can be found here: http://makinghugospin.livejournal.com/9761.html?thread=1008161#t2010401
> 
> I said I'd fill this a while back, and then I got caught up with Howl, so while I've been struggling with the last chapter of that I thought I'd come back for some nice light hearted writing. Any critique, suggestions of advice is very welcome. Enjoy.

He was introduced to the boys as Ep, by a grinning Marius eager to show he is a part of their ritual of welcoming a new soul to their fold of friendship at least once a year. It was Marius himself a year before, with Courfeyrac bringing the boy into the Musain wearing the same second-hand denim jacket adorning Ep that had been handed around the group since Bahorel had grown out of it. Ep wore it better than Marius had, what with his rough-and-tumble demeanour only being amplified by the worn denim.

Marius sits Ep between him and Jehan and immediately launches into conversation with Courfeyrac. Jehan wonders aloud what Ep stands for.

Ep smirks, with a little flash of teeth, and answers, “I don’t know. It’s a mystery.”

Jehan makes it his mission to engage the boy in conversation, not at all influenced by the fact that he’s already a little smitten with the brunette, and quickly finds him intelligent if not articulate. By the end of the night they are far into the ‘such good friends they insult each other’ phase, intermingled with the compliments they throw at each other and seem to make Ep more uncomfortable than any insult ever could.

“I’d like to read your poetry someday, Jean,” Ep says, smirking toothily as he has been all night.

“My friends call me Jehan,” he breathes, for Ep is leaning down so Jehan can hear him over Bahorel and Grantaire singing drunkenly, dark eyes shining, like a starry sky reflected on the deepest ocean, and he can’t quite grasp any other words.

Ep nods, leaning back in his chair languidly. “Jehan it is, then.”

More than a year has passed since that night (A year, two months and eight days, but who’s counting) and Jehan is walking down the street to his apartment with Ep reflecting on the fact he’s totally in love with the other boy. There are, of course, several problems with that.

Not that he isn’t sure Ep is gay, he’s been in love with Marius for as long as Jehan has known him. Of course, Marius has been dating a wide eyed blonde for some time now, darling Cosette, and though he knows Ep wants to no one could hold any bad feelings towards the dear girl. Ep had bowed down gracefully, happy to see Marius so happy, but Jehan knew Ep didn’t know what to do with himself without his feelings for Marius driving him forward. He certainly wasn’t ready for someone to jump out and proclaim their undying love.

Of course, the issue here was Jehan himself. Jehan had never shown any interest in another man before, despite his friends insisting otherwise.

“It was hardly a secret, Jehan,” Bahorel would coo. “I mean; the flowers, the poems, the flute...”

“It’s a pretty phallic instrument, is all we’re saying,” Grantaire would chime in.

Jehan knew he was a rather feminine man. There was no wrong in that. But gay... it just didn’t feel right to him. It didn’t feel like him.

Maybe he was just Ep-sexual.

“You’re probably my best friend, Jehan, you know that, right?” Ep chimes suddenly. Jehan turns to face him, blushing furiously as if the brunette could read his thoughts. They’re climbing the stairs to Jehan’s apartment, and since Jehan spaces out more often than not Ep has his own key out and in the lock before Jehan can properly respond.

“I... yes, of course. I thought it was a given.” Ep turns to smile at him, the honest smile Ep only seems to give to him nowadays instead of that toothy smirk, ushering Jehan into the apartment as if it were his own.

“You know you could trust me with anything, right?” Suddenly Jehan’s palms are sweating, the back of his throat hurting the way it does whenever he’s about to hyperventilate, because _what if Ep knows_.

“Jehan?” Ep reappears from wherever he went and is back, hands on Jehan’s shoulders, leant forward and looking deep into Jehan’s eyes with worry. If anything Jehan grows more frantic, afraid of what his friend might see in the depths of his eyes. “What’s wrong? Talk to me.”

He didn’t mean for it to happen this way, it just sort of _came out_.

“Oh God, Ep, I’m sorry but I might be a little – or a lot – in love with you, but I don’t understand how or why because – oh, you’re wonderful, really – but I’m not really into that sort of thing.” He garbles.

Ep blinks at him, unmoving.

“Into what sort of thing?”

“Men,” stutters Jehan, utterly defeated,

Ep leans back and laughs, deep from the belly, and Jehan has never felt pain like he’s feeling right now.

“Oh, Jehan,” Ep giggles, leaving Jehan to feel like a child in the schoolyard about to be told Santa isn’t real.

“I was going to tell you--” Ep starts, then stops, grasping Jehan’s hands and pulling them to his waist and up under his sweater, as if this were a perfectly logical reaction after laughing in the face of Jehan’s affection, and—

_Oh._

His fingertips brush a stretch of fabric that some knowledgeable part of his brain claims is a bandeau, Ep’s hands pulling slightly higher as so to cup Jehan’s hands around what anyone could positively identify as breasts.

“Oh.” He voices. Ep giggles again. His eyes, before trained on the path of their hands, rush up to meet Ep’s eyes. He sees now what he had overlooked before; the feminine curve to her jaw and lips, the apple of her cheeks and the long sweep of her neck. He looks into her eyes, and he doesn’t see rejection there.

Ep has trusted him with her secret.

“Ep is short for Eponine, since I know you were wondering,” she whispers conspiratorially.

“Why?” He asks, as if this is not too vague a question to ask in such a situation, knowing she will understand as she always does.

“Life is easier as a man. I get more respect. Marius knew, of course, but he never really cared. Got me in with you boys, didn’t it?” She winks at him.

“Eponine,” he whispers, sounding the name out. She sighs once, eyes falling closed, almost dreamily.

“You have such a lovely voice, Jehan,” she says, “and the way you say my name...”

Her thumbs brush over the back of his hand, and suddenly he realises he’s got his hands on her breasts and pulls them away, blushing a furious red. Eponine laughs again, more with him than at him, and allows him to pull their hands out from under her sweater without letting go of him.

“So I guess this solves your romantic dilemma, doesn’t it?” She questions.

“I had already decided I must just be Ep-sexual,” he replies honestly. This causes a heartfelt laugh to escape her, moulding into that true smile she holds just for him. “Now I just don’t feel so conflicted over the whole thing.”

“So,” she fiddles with his hands, suddenly nervous. “You’re still interested, then?”

“Of course,” he adds quickly. Gripping her hands tightly in his. “You’re... God, Eponine.” For once in his life, words do not find him, and so he leans forward and downward and quickly kisses her, softly and slowly on the lips. She responds in kind, pulling him away to the nearby couch and refusing to let him go for more than the few moments it takes them to draw in breath. Her hands slide up his arms, curling around his shoulders, while his find a place on her waist as if they were made to sit there.

Eponine is the one to finally pull away, eyes hooded, barely an inch from his face. “I’d say this whole evening turned out better than I expected.”

“Do share, Ep,” he jovially decrees, leaning back against the arm of the couch so she could curl up against him, chin on his chest, looking up at him.

“I thought I might pull of my shirt and scare you, or perhaps tell you outright. Then you would announce your outrage at my dishonesty and storm out the door, never to speak to me again.” She said, as if rehearsed. The fear was still buried deep, burning out through her eyes and the stiffness of her muscles.

“I would never storm out,” he reassures, twirling a lock of her hair around his finger. “This is my apartment.”

She slaps him once, hard, across the chest, and they never speak of such things again.


End file.
